Thomas Johansson Dec 26, 2013:

"Thalassic" comes from the Greek word "thalassa", meaning "sea". I feel this word only expresses a connection with the sea and suggests for instance a state or power that lives by or on the sea (e.g. its islands) but suggests little more (e.g. any territorial expansionist tendencies along the shores of the sea). (But perhaps that's just my personal feeling as I don't know how the word is actually used in political geography today.)
In this case, however, I get the impression we are dealing with a power characterized but territorial expansion around the sea (see my reference), which is brought out well by the "circum-" prefix.
Perhaps something like "circumnavigate thalassic" could work. I also note that "circumthalassic" actually gives a few Google hits (a strange mixture of Latin and Greek, though).

Michael Ellis Dec 26, 2013:

Thalassic Like Cynthia, I had never heard the word circummarine (or circum-marine), nor does it appear in the OED or Webster's, but having studied political geography I am familiar with thalassic in connection with state-building; it also appears in the OED and Webster's (and as thalassique in Larousse).
My search engine throws up a few instances of circummarine, often by Nordic or other non-native English speakers, but thalassic produces many more, nearly all by native English speakers.

As Thomas says, circummarina is probably a calque, in this case possibly made up for the purpose by the author.

On the other hand,
a) a non-expert would probably be able to work out what circummarine means (as Mats does in his explanation)
b) I suspect CharlesP is translating an old Swedish document and an old-fashioned sounding word like circummarine may fit the register better.

Charlesp (asker) Dec 26, 2013:

Thanks for the discussion and input "cirkummarina statsbildningar" is what is being referred to here. (So I'd guess it is an adverb.)
It is a type of "state," or country.

Perhaps it is a "made-up" word here (in the text in question).

Cynthia Coan Dec 26, 2013:

Thanks for the reference I had previously been bothered by the lack of sources containing the mystery term, but it's good to know about sources where the combination of "circum" and "marine" actually appear combined in a single word, and not just as separate words in the same passage.

Thomas Johansson Dec 26, 2013:

Swedish takes a lot of words through calquing from English sources. Here, calquing has likely been involved, since neither part of the word ("cirkum-" and "-marin-") are used very frequently in Swedish. An English "circummarine" would be an obvious source of such a calquing process. In my reference at the bottom of this page, I have given a link to the sort of discourse (using "circummarine") that might have inspired the use of this word in Swedish. Meaningwise, this word fits well with the context of the current translation.

Cynthia Coan Dec 26, 2013:

True, online sources aren't gospel ... ... but when a supposed word doesn't turn up in either online or printed sources, one has to wonder if the word in fact even exists. In extremely rare circumstances (another "circum" word that accidentally slipped out my keyboard ;-)) a translator might be justified in coining a new term. In almost all other cases, though, the more prudent policy is to stick with words and terms that are actually proven to exist -- hence, my preference for a term based on "circumnavigation." If, on the other hand, anyone has actually come across the term "circummarine" I would be happy to hear from that person and to know in what source the term can be found. If I'm missing something here, I would very much like to be enlightened. TIA.

Mats Wiman Dec 26, 2013:

The a indicates plural. Which would mean it is an adjective

Cynthia Coan Dec 26, 2013:

What part of speech is the word in question? Whether it serves as an adjective or verb will, of course, affect the translation.